I wore Ektio Breakaways for our spring league this year. I own a sneaker shop and was looking at the possibility of carrying them.

From a performance standpoint they are quite good. Great ankle support/lockdown, not nearly as heavy as they look, and the materials are great. I would recommend at least .5 size bigger, they do run tight, and that's compared to my lebron x's, which are known to run tight.

I had the same concerns with the idea of if the ankle is strapped up, injury will happen to the next weakest point. My thought here is that if it was a bad enough situation, terrible things are going to happen regardless. If you're coming down awkwardly, i think these would just give you more time to realize and adjust so you can just collapse as opposed to trying to stick a bad landing.

With that said, I ended up going back to my Lebron X's. Better overall foot support for the way i play. 6'7 220 lbs, not very graceful, the full length air unit saves my feet and knees.

But i would highly recommend Ektio for people with chronic ankle issues. Id be carrying them in my store if i could work around the terrible US -> Canada duty fees.